Over the past few months, I have become increasingly interested in #Twitter with the help of my friend, Julie Hunt (@juliebhunt) of Austin.
Like (@Univ_of_Oregon) #Prof. Kyu Ho Youm (@Marshall Youm), I use Twitter to share, learn, and keep virtual note cards.
As you’ve immediately noticed, I (@BenKerschberg) am writing this short piece in a series of #Tweets 140 characters or fewer.
Why?
Because I think you’ll one day read serious news pieces that look like this.
Return to the value of the platform itself. If you #
Each serves a different purpose. Most of us use more than one.
Businesses continue to discover the extraordinary #branding value of each, as well as #Google+.
#Twitter can be social, and esp. so with the ubiq. of #mobile #tech. Tell your friends you just had lunch in #CentralPark. Announce a party.
#Twitter can be used to bring together like-minded individuals to share ideas about topics of interest such as #bigdata or the #celtics.
They’re known as #tweetjams and gets millions of impressions within hours. #getrealchat @PamMktgNut.
#Twitter is highly educational. I use #HootSuite (@HootSuite) to follow #hashtags such as #ediscovery, #bigdata, #socialmedia, and others.
I also follow particular individuals whom I trust as quality content filters. There are too many to name without omitting some. And some follow me.
A friend argues that #Twitter will obviate the need for #RSS feeds. I agree with him to a great extent.
#Twitter can be used to define terms in the form of #hashtags.
Earlier this week, I posted an article that discussed “technology-assisted review,” a widely used term in #ediscovery.
No real #hashtag exists for this. #TAR refers to something else. But #TAReview would have worked nicely.
Should I by inclusion in parentheses have proposed that #hashtag to Forbes readers? I didn’t feel comfortable doing so.
It’s difficult to dispute the role of #Twitter when it comes to disseminating breaking news. #binladen #tebow #romney #earthquake.
Could the #ArabSpring have occurred without #Twitter? Maybe, but #technology certainly was a catalyst.
Real-time news is now often reported first by those on the scene who tweet what they see. They share photos that can go viral.
Think of Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual), the Pakistani #IT consultant who tweeted the presence of U.S. #helicopters and the #BinLaden raid.
Long-form #journalism is dead. So too is the average attention span, including mine.
The Internet has democratized #journalism in profound ways. #Blogs and #Twitter are among countless free platforms.
People want a voice, and writing (and other media such as #podcasts and #YouTube #videos) provides it.
It is largely less important now to be published in the #Newsweek print edition than to have a single blog entry go viral.
Purists will decry the notion that serious #writing can include # and @ in choppy, gram. incorrect, punct-free bursts filled with abbrevs.
Those same purists also bemoan the loss of long-form journalism, as do I. It can never happen, they said. But it’s gone.
So if you wish to be heard, why not commit heresy and make life easy for your #reader?
Feed them “quotable quotes,” as my friend Nancy Scott (@NancyScottLyon) calls them. Let’s dub these #QQuotes.
If you have one in the future, add #QQuote to your Tweet. Why not? People can search for that #hashtag, which carries meaning.
Why would an author not seize the opportunity to influence how his ideas disseminate?
In other words, feed the reader.
Let him cut and paste two lines replete with your desired #hashtags and drop them into his #Twitter client next to your short URL. #Bit.ly
That’s the goal: the effortless transfer to Twitter of your content bites with attribution – not just a link to the whole article.
Google searches ignore #hashtags, so they’re not in your article to improve your visibility that way. (Try: Google #cat and then “cat”)
Why stop at having someone link to your article? #Pride? #Convention? #Purity?
Do authors want their articles read? Of course. Would they prefer to see their ideas spread? One hopes so.
Months ago, a high school friend on #FB used @JaneDoe (a fictitious name) to refer to someone in a thread. I thought it was nonsense.
Perhaps in some contexts.
Yet #European #football (#soccer) clubs are replacing players’ names with @Name handles on their jerseys. I’m not joking.
For every author who wants to spread his ideas, there is a reader who doesn’t have time. If he doesn’t sp-feed the R, someone else will.
Is this a good thing? I certainly don’t think so.
Will our world continue to be reduced (some may say progress) to 140 character bites of life, literature, and politics. Yes.
So will you one day read a post about the #Japanese #economy or our failing #school systems that looks like this?
#Bet #on #it.
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I am the founder of BKC3 Consulting Group. Please follow me on Twitter @BenKerschberg and LinkedIn. Please also feel free to email me.
